I've Done This Before
by DaniCalifornia
Summary: "Its what it is…you, me." They had gone through this so many times, always with the same outcome. On the election trail Rory stops in Phili.
1. The Girl From Mars

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, yadda yadda yadda

* * *

**The Girl From Mars**

A smile, one that she couldn't hold back, crept onto Lorelei III's lips. She'd found good coffee, something that was crucial when staying in an unfamiliar city. But it wasn't just the caffeine that had her grinning so widely. Her chin was also obnoxiously high as she waltzed down the Philadelphia street. But, hey, she had a right to be pompous.

She was after all a twenty-two Yale grad who had scored a dream job: covering the 2008 presidential election. She was sleep deprived and stressed out and repulsed by the bathroom on the press bus; but it was amazing.

She'd managed to find some free time that Sunday morning and decided to spend it wandering aimlessly around the city. She'd quickly found the artsy side of town and now sipped her coffee as she admired the charmingly rundown neighborhood.

Her grin widened as she felt her phone vibrate within her purse. It had been just a month since she left Stars Hollow after that enormous party the town had thrown for her and the longest hug she'd ever endured from her mother at the bus station but the both of them were feeling considerably heartbroken about their separation and supplemented their usually regular time together with a seemingly constant stream of text messages, emails, and phone calls. It was as if she were still in Stars Hollow to hear of every controversy conjured up by Taylor and at Friday night dinners to witness Lorelei vs. Emily banter matches.

Rory dug the phone out her bag and flipped it open. There were no words in the message, just a picture. She had to examine it for a moment to understand what it was of. She finally distinguished Kirk, his head horizontal, resting in a plate of mashed potatoes. She smirked at it and texted a question mark back to her mother.

She chugged the last bit of her steaming coffee that didn't bother her in the summer heat and tossed into a trash barrel. Now looking up again at the street she realized that she had no idea where she was. She had wandered very far from her hotel. The Gilmore Girls, although revered for many other qualities, were not known for their sense of direction.

As she glanced about the rode she noticed a narrow street that cut into the block she'd found herself on. And although, utterly lost, she found it familiar. Perhaps she had come that way. She turned the corner and began down the street.

As she neared the end of the little block her eyes scanned the buildings along the way, but didn't recognize any from her morning walk. But as she was about to reach the next intersection her eyes came to rest on one in particular: a two story brick with storefront windows. The sign over the door read "Truncheon Books".

Her face flushed. Her gut tightened. She had been on this street, not this morning, almost a year ago.

The invitation had come in the mail and she'd stashed it under a pile of schoolwork, where she intended for it to stay. But it was a pleasant surprise when the open house happened to coincide with Logan skipping town to go skydiving. So she decided to go out of innocent curiosity, she'd told herself. Though, on the ride down, she'd tried but couldn't remember the last time innocent curiosity had brought her on a four-hour road trip. So she told herself it was to support an old friend, to congratulate him on an accomplishment. She thought more and although that wasn't false, really…she'd gone to restore her image.

He had seen her at her worst, a drop out living with her grandparents, working at the DAR. She cringed when she looked back on this. She'd wanted to show him that that wasn't her, that she'd picked herself up and brushed herself off.

That day she'd been confident and had strode right through that front door. And while she had only seconds before been strutting down the street, a grin on her raised chin, she now stood, blushing, feeling like she was sixteen again.

Her mind was frozen by the dilemma: to continue towards the building, or to run and hide. The latter seemed much more pleasant. Her curious feet however had a different idea. They pulled her unwilling mind closer. Now she stood at the front door. She peered in through the windows but saw nothing much in the dimly lit room. Deep Breath. She pushed the door open and stepped in.

She smiled at the smell that immediately filled her lungs. _Books. _Glancing around she saw little more than she had from the outside. As she remembered paintings covered most walls and in front of the staircase that cut right through the ground floor there stood a small stand displaying Truncheon's publications: a few books, a couple of magazines, and _The Subsect_. She smiled reaching for it. It had a new cover.

"We're closed," Bellowed a familiar voice in that unique 'fuck-you' tone that ran in the Danes family.

Rory glanced around. Through the musty air she spotted a figure hunched over a desk in one of the far corners, furiously scribbling in a notebook. Crumpled pages littered the floor around him.

"But I'd like to buy this." She called, holding up the new edition.

"What did I just sa-" He yelled before pausing. The voice was unmistakable. He glanced up. For a moment he stared at her. Then he was out of his chair and striding towards her.

He looked a bit more like the boy she'd known in Stars Hollow compared to last time she'd seen him. No suit jacket this time, just a t-shirt and jeans, his hair in the usual gelled mess, and an _unusual_ look of disbelief on his face.

"Hey,"

* * *

A/N: This is 1/3. An update is on the way. Reviews in the mean time?


	2. Like A Friend

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! And yes only three chapters. I figure short and cohesive is better than long and deteriorating, something I've done before. Plus I'm grateful I managed to get three chaps out of this, the first one sat in a lonely folder on my laptop for about two years before i managed to write the second. So without further Adieu, here it is:

* * *

**Like A Friend**

**

* * *

**

A scowl spread over Jess Mariano's face.

"Gagh!"

He exclaimed, tossing away yet another page full of scribbled writing. He sighed and sat back in his chair. He'd shot out of bed that morning, and raced to find paper to record something brilliant that had come to him. But he had since seemed to have emptied himself of anything of value.

Exhaling and hunched over the desk again he began scribbling. The bell that hung from the store's front door rang and he scowled.

"We're closed," He bellowed, not looking up from his notebook. After he finished a sentence he reread it and abruptly and vigorously crossed it out.

"But I'd like to buy this."

Jess was quite obviously not in the best of moods and so immediately snapped back. "What did I just sa-" But he stopped himself, registering the sound of the other's voice. _It couldn't be. _He glanced up.

It was.

She stood a few yards from him smiling a little awkwardly and holding the new edition of his book. He stood up and started over towards her. To his surprise she didn't disappear.

"Hey," He said, a smile curling on his lips. She smiled back.

"Hi,"

He had felt almost this surprised a year earlier at the very same sight.

It was totally out of the blue. He had sent her an invitation but hadn't thought anything would come of it. He'd pressed the pen down much harder as he scribbled the address on the envelope bound for Connecticut while he tried to get his mind off her blonde douche bag of a boyfriend.

Actually seeing her there that day had made any negative emotions in him evaporate. It seemed to have the same effect this morning.

"H-hi" He stuttered again, "what are you-"

"Oh, I'm here for work," She responded before he managed finish. "I'm covering the campaign."

Jess's eyebrow cocked. "Seriously?" He smiled wider. "Look at you, Miss Amanpour."

Rory rolled her eyes modestly. "Not quite. It's for this little news blog no ones ever heard of-

"Give me the URL."

Rory then gave him possibly the biggest grin he'd seen from her before breaking it with a question. "So what are _you_ up to?"

"Uh," Jess began and laughed sheepishly as he glanced around the room that looked like it been hit by a tornado. "I've been _trying_ to write."

"Deadlines help, believe me." She said with a laugh. She had grown up since high school and she was certainly dressed for the part of professional journalist, but when she smiled like that her eyes looked the same as the day he met her. And standing there looking at her now made him feel the same as that day as well. Not like the arrogant Holden Caulfield-wanna-be he'd been to the world, but the insecure boy that'd been hiding under that.

"So really, how much?" She asked holding up the new edition of _The Subsect_. He rolled his eyes.

"Zero" He said. Jess was broke and could use any income he could get, but he couldn't fathom asking her to pay for his book. Hell, it was half hers. He wondered if she realized that. If when she read it she saw herself in the characters he had made for her, or in the scenes that so closely resembled those that played out between them.

She made a face to show her disapproval and silence fell between them. This was as far as they had gotten in their recent meetings. Small talk seemed all they could manage.

He missed her. No, not in the love-sick pining can't sleep can't eat kind of missing that he had once felt. He missed knowing her. Seeing her, talking to her, arguing over authors with her. She wasn't his flawless angel anymore. But she'd been his best friend and he regretted not having her in his life for so many years.

_Fuck it. _

"You wanna get coffee?" He asked. "This room is giving me a headache."

"That's probably not a good idea." She said. His gut wrenched. "I mean, I've already had two cups today, and I've been really overdoing it the past couple of weeks…Maybe lunch?" He recovered. "Don't I still owe you that egg roll?"

He smiled, remembering that joke.

"C'mon, I know a place."

.

* * *

.

He still smoked.

She could tell from the smell that wafted from him. It's strange what association can do. Cigarette smoke, the stench of poisonous fumes, had a soft spot in her mind's memory bank of scents.

Her foot twitched a bit as it sat coiled around her other leg beneath the table. Her elbows rested uneasily on the edge of the table while her fingers fiddled with the sugar packet she'd emptied into her decaf tea.

"No," Rory said. "It can actually be really frustrating. My boss expects me to follow along with whatever the rest of the press is squawking about each week."

"Like what designer Michelle wore to the Town Hall?" He asked.

"Exactly" She said. "But if the week's slow he'll let me come up with my own story or do some real analysis, which is great." She perked up a bit more and looked across to him. He sat leaning back against the back of the booth in the dimly lit basement level pan-Asian restaurant. Apparently they had the best egg roll in town.

It was getting easier. They had fallen back into their old rhythm. They still had the same sense of humor.

"How's life as the tortured artist?" She asked.

"'Tortured'?" He asked smiling with an eyebrow cocked.

Rory smirked. "I believe that's the word that was used in a review I read for_ The Subsect_."

"What are you googling me?" He asked, with a more humble smile.

"Yes," She said in all honesty.

A plate of steaming egg rolls was placed on the table by a waitress without a word. Jess starred at them for a moment. There was a blush that didn't reach his cheeks.

She reached out a delicate hand to claim one of the rolls.

"Ow!" She squealed, immediately retracting her hand. He had to laugh. She hadn't changed.

They bickered about authors and music as always. It was the kind of bickering you can only have with someone whose opinion you truly respect. But neither asked the questions that were really on their minds.

Sometime later Rory was looking at herself in the dingy mirror in the cramped bathroom of the restaurant. She'd been scrubbing her hands in soap for nearly five minutes wondering how big of an idiot she was being.

She'd done this before, she thought.

She thought of one of the last things Jess had said to her when she'd seen him the year before.

"_Its what it is…you, me."_

It was the truth. They had gone through this so many times. They'd exhausted every option, always with the same outcome. They simply were a certain way. There always were and would be feelings. And they were and would always be intense. There was no being mild and civil with Jess. There was no getting around it. It was impossible.

She could never get to the place where was with Dean. If they ran into each other on the street they'd stop, have a five to ten minute conversation, catching up, make small talk about the weather and their families, then move on without a second thought.

But with Jess…

There was always something.

A glance at her watch told she was late for a press conference and with a deep breath she washed her hands of one final time. When she returned to the table he was jotting something down on his grease stained napkin.

"Poetry?" she asked with a smile.

"Nonsense" He said, tucking the piece of cloth into a pocket.

She sat across from him once again and bit her lip for a second. She was loosing her nerve. She let out an internal sigh. _Fuck it._

"So I really have to run to this press thing, but it'll be out at seven and I haven't got anything to do tonight. You wanna show me around town?"

* * *

A/N: Next week will be the conclusion, Reviews!


	3. And I Will Do It Again

A/N: Ok, so a bit of a late update, sorry bout that, school and what-not. Here's the final chapter:

* * *

**And I Will Do It Again**

**

* * *

**

The sun slipped behind the building across the street on its way to the horizon, leaving Jess in the dark. He'd returned to his desk with the intention of working but he'd been there nearly an hour now and his notebook sat closed in front of him. He leaned back in his chair and remembered the greasy napkin in his pocket. He pulled it out. He sighed. After rereading it he realized that it wasn't original, it was from a song.

Come on and kill me baby,

While you smile like a friend.

And I'll come running,

Just to do it again.

He crumpled it up to toss it away. He hated when others' words crept up in his subconscious without him realizing. He had no question though why those particular words had come to him as he sat in the restaurant.

"I haven't got anything to do tonight. You wanna show me around town?"

He'd smiled and nodded and regretted it almost instantly. What was this trial number nine? He'd deduced that the blonde wasp was gone but that had been the least of their problems. None of their issues had been resolved and he'd given up on trying, but then she smiled and he came running.

He was mentally ill. That was the only explanation. They both were. They were children, their hands covered in burns from a hot stove and they kept reaching for it.

He winced at his watch. Six o'clock. He, for a short instant, considered bailing. Blowing her off, without explanation. Hell, he'd done it before. But that thought passed quickly. There was no chance of it. He couldn't steer off course, he had to crash and burn.

He got up, the notebook still lying untouched on the desk, and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. He had a craving worse than any he'd had in months.

Rory craned her neck as she wished she'd worn her more practical flats. She along with the other _unimportant _journalists (bloggers, writers for web magazines, etc.) were packed like sardines in the nose-bleeds. She glanced at her watch. 6:45. A month ago she would looking on in awe, even two hours into to a press conference. Now it was apparent that only the first half-hour mattered and the last three were full of fluff questions like 'What will Sasha and Malia name their puppy?'. She hadn't taken a note in over an hour. Her mind was already elsewhere and the bland questions weren't helping.

For the first time it occurred to Rory that she could leave. A week earlier she saw Helen Thomas sneak out after Obama started on the dog and thought it incredibly rude. Now she couldn't resist. She ducked and as gracefully as possible slipped through the crowd toward the door of the conference room. She exited into the lobby of the hotel where she and the rest of the press were staying. It was normally hectic, reporters and cameramen scampering around the lobby, but as they were all crammed in the conference room at the moment the lobby was uncharacteristically calm.

Rory glanced again at her watch. 6:46. She caught herself in the massive gold-framed mirror on the opposite wall and immediately began fussing with her hair. She had spent a half hour dressing herself that afternoon. She had at first picked out her go-to outfit that oozed sex, then remembering it was Jess pulled out pieces she'd had since high school. The result was a pair of jeans, a Violent Femmes t-shirt beneath a blazer and black pumps of the exact height she remembered would bring her eye-to-eye with him. She sighed, worried she'd be over dressed, then caught herself.

What was she doing? This was Jess. It was never going to work, she'd accepted that years ago. So what was this? Boredom? She hadn't had any romantic interaction since she'd been on the road. She had no time. She was stressed out and horny and Jess was _Jess._ This last thought made her take yet another step back. Since when did she _justify_ a stupid romantic move as just being her on the prowl for a one-night-stand? Was that better than her earnestly seeking out Jess for…for what? A relationship? That word sounded impossibly idiotic in her head.

She ran her hands one last time through her hair and decided she needed some air. She stomped outside to the sidewalk outside the hotel. It did not have the desired affect. It was July and it was hot and humid. She glanced around, now less comfortable than she'd been in the air-conditioned lobby. She caught sight of a figure and her previous train of thought evaporated.

He was leaned up against the stone façade of the hotel to the left of the front doors, staring with great intent at a cigarette that rested in his fingers.

"Musing?" She asked, approaching him. He looked up and a slight smile appeared on his lips. He dropped it and stamped it out on the pavement.

Jess _had_ been musing. Musing about what particular psychosis he suffered from. There wasn't one to his knowledge that could explain his presence outside the hotel. _Maybe I'm a masochist, _had been his last thought before she'd interrupted. And then it was instantly gone, any thought that doubted how wise his actions were. _I'll come running. _

"So what's the plan?" She asked eagerly. He scrunched up his face for a moment in thought. He had dug through newspapers and listings looking for something that might interest the both of them.

"Well," He began. "For food, there's this pub a few blocks over, Doyle's, cheap but really good. In the other direction," He pointed to his right, "there's this Indian place, every time I've been there its absolutely deserted, but again really good, I don't get it. Maybe it's a front business." Jess paused and thought about for a second before continuing. "For entertainment: This band Wavves is playing at Placebo, The Grafton Theatre is screening Eraserhead, and finally but not least this kid I know plays drums in some punk-noise-pop band and there playing a show in some kid's basement."

Rory pondered for another moment, considered her assortment of options.

"How about," She began tapping her chin and looking up at nothing. "Indian and Some-Kid's-Basement."

Jess smiled and nodded. "Agreed."

Jess was happy with Rory's first choice. The as-always deserted Indian restaurant was quiet and allowed for easy conversation. He tore off piece of naan and listened intently to her rant on presidential puppies. He was distracted from her though when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He flinched at it and pulled it out under the table. He felt guilt wash over him as he read the contact name.

Rory paused at the expression on his face.

"What is it?" She asked. Jess glanced up with a fake grin and tucked the phone back away into his pocket.

"Nothing,"

Rory smiled and continued on.

_No, I'm a Sadist._

_

* * *

_

It was two hours later that the two eagerly hopped up the basement steps that belonged to 'some kid', escaping from the claustrophobic cellar from which an awful noise was wrenching.

"I'm sorry," Laughed Jess once they reached the deserted yard beside the house. "I don't know the drummer that well, he seemed like he was into good music, not _that_," He said motioning back towards the cellar door.

Rory only laughed with him as her ears praised the relative silence they found outside. Apparently they were the only two of the approximately one hundred people who had crammed themselves into the basement who objected to the 'music'. Rory now regretted the five dollar bill she had slipped in the Folger's coffee can labeled 'Donations' that had been passed around before the show began. They now stood in a small, poorly manicured backyard in a neighborhood outside the denser side of the city. It was a minute before their laughter died down and Jess offered:

"We could still catch Eraserhead,"

Rory took a second and shrugged. "Nah," She said as she looked up to the sky. The light from the city turned it a deep purple and she could see only half as many stars as in Stars Hollow. Besides that notable difference Rory felt as if she were in the town and seventeen again, departing from one of Hep Alien's early and less than melodic practices.

Jess was for a second disheartened by her disinterest but then she turned her gaze back down to him with a smile, an odd contentment in her eyes. As sour as this outcome to their planned evening could have been Jess didn't mind in the least. He was exactly where he wanted to be.

There was a long moment of comfortable silence. He leaned against the rusty chain-link fence that ran along the edge of the yard. He looked back to her to meet her gaze and found her closer to him. Her hands were at his waist.

Jess for a second tried to remember the last time she had looked at him that way. Before he could place it she was kissing him.

Jess followed a foot behind her down the long off-white hallway. He felt mesmerized by what presided at the end of it but also felt the pull of something dragging him back the way he came. As of yet one force was strongly prevailing. It was Rory. The girl who'd kept him alive the past four years. How could he have forgotten that? How could he have _tried_ to forget her?

A word had not been spoken on their commute back to Rory's hotel. Their mouths had been occupied by other matters. They only now parted in the space between the elevator and Rory's room.

Rory too had a voice telling her to stop. It was quiet though, dull when compared to what was pulling her farther down the hall. Her door came into view. She turned to him and with a smirk pulled him close to her.

He pushed her against the door while her fingers searched for the knob. They found it and rested there for a second as he kissed her. Their eyes opened and met for a moment, then she turned and pushed open the door.

It was in that moment when she was turned from him that he felt it. Dread. He saw the foot of the bed just a few feet from the doorway. He stopped her, he gripped her hand his feet planted on the floor.

"Rory," He said looking into the darkness of the hotel room. She stopped and turned. She looked at him questioningly. Then she saw in his face. She had seen that look before. "I..." he began. There was a pause. It was amazing, he thought. How close he felt to this other person, how well he knew her, when he'd never been _with_ her. He'd wanted it for so long. Was he really going to pass it up now that it was staring him down? He hadn't decided on the answer when seemed to fall from his mouth.

"…can't." She starred at him in that moment and he down at the hand that clenched hers. It did not seem to have any plan of letting go. He was cursing himself. But no he couldn't do it. She _was _still his angel, at least he wanted her to be. And he couldn't have her like this. "I'm seeing someone,"

Now they were both staring at the pair of hands clenched together between them. Her grip loosened before his did but he let go easily. She looked up to stare him in the eye but he was still looking to where their hands had been. _Of course. _She thought. She wasn't a religious person, or a superstitious one. But she knew there was something focusing all its energy on keeping them apart. Up to this point she'd thought it was herself, her conscience. It was against logic so she'd held herself back. Yet still now, after she'd thrown logic out the window, the brick wall still stood between them. So it wasn't her conscience, it was the whole fucking universe.

As she stared at him, coming to this realization, he finally met her gaze.

"Rory, I'm sorry, I -

She shook her head. "It is what it is," _You, me. _

The door clicked quietly shut behind her and Jess stood alone in the brightly lit hallway.

* * *

A/N: Ok, so I give all you Literati shippers permission to hate the ending, I understand. You can pretend that last section didn't happen. It took me a long time to write but I knew that that would be the ending since I began. If it helps, this ending does leave the possibility for a sequel, no promises but I've been brainstorming.

More importantly it is now your assignment to look up the song **"Like A Friend"** by **Pulp** and listen to it _all the way through. _The end is the best part. It is the soundtrack to this fic, as well as Rory and Jess's entire relationship, very sad it was never used in the show.


End file.
